The present disclosure relates to a coating combination suitable for coating an architectural surface. The present disclosure also relates to a buoyant coating contacting member for use with such a coating combination. The present disclosure further relates to a container for the coating which with the coating comprises a kit.
Typically the coating combination includes a coating composition which is applied by amateur (i.e. “do-it-yourself” or “DIY”) coaters wanting to coat an architectural surface as quickly as possible. Architectural surfaces include for example the surfaces of walls, ceilings or doors as found on and in buildings and particularly as found in domestic dwellings. Roller coating is quicker than brush coating for most if not all of the typical 1 coating compositions including paints, varnishes, lacquers, wall covering pastes and fillers such as the plaster compositions used to fill cracks or holes. Paints are the coating compositions most frequently applied by amateurs and so this description will refer primarily to paints even though similar considerations will apply to other coating compositions. Paints are coating compositions that typically comprise at least a binder, pigment, and carrier. For instance a latex paint typically has at least an aqueous emulsion or dispersion of a polymer with reduced water solubility, a pigment, a pigment dispersant, and water as the primary carrier. A latex is usually an emulsion or dispersion of one or more water insoluble polymers in water. One type of paint that can further simplify the painting process for the amateur and contractor alike is the paint that in one coat gives desired coverage along with other paint film properties and saves any time used in applying a conventional second coat.
Painting using a roller is from 2 to 6 times faster than painting using a brush and it requires less skill as is reported by A H Beckly on pages 143 to 150 of his “Handbook of Painting and Decorating Products” published in 1983 by Granada of London, see in particular pages 148 and 150. The contents of pages 143 to 150 and Plate 14 (referred to later) of Beckly are herein incorporated by reference. Rollers also make the painting of rough surfaces easier and therefore quicker yet despite their advantages, many amateurs are reluctant to use them because of their potential for creating mess if used unskillfully. Therefore it is important to minimise the risks of mess to make the use of rollers more attractive to amateurs and providing ease of use for the contractor or professional painter. Further benefits can be gained by reducing the risks of mess in the use of rollers while also harnessing the characteristics which produce mess as the very characteristics which enable a paint to give adequate one-coat cover of marks on a surface.
To achieve adequate one-coat coating, it is necessary to apply a coat of paint which is thicker than is normally possible using popular paints. The problem with popular conventional paints is that if they are applied as a thick coat to a vertical surface such as the surface of a wall or door, they will begin to flow downwards before the paint has had time to dry and unsightly marks known as “sagging” will appear. Sagging is illustrated in Plate 14 of Beckly. The sagging problem is aggravated in one-coat paints by the fact that it is usually necessary for the paint to contain higher than usual levels of rutile titanium dioxide opacifying pigment. Rutile has a density of 4.05 kg/l and so it substantially increases the density of the paint and hence its tendency to sag.
Current commercially available one-coat paints avoid the problem of sagging by increasing the viscosity of the paints. Unfortunately, increasing the viscosity also increases the risk of mess because of the ways in which paint is conventionally loaded onto a roller. In one particular commercial practice, loading is performed from a tray provided with a well and an adjacent ribbed surface (see Beckly, page 150) which slopes gently downwards towards the well. The first step in the loading procedure is to pour paint into the well from the can or bucket in which it has been supplied by the manufacturer. Spilling during this pouring step is a potential source of mess when performed by unskilled amateurs especially if the paint is highly viscous because there is a risk of it flowing in a sudden rush. The next step is to load the roller by dipping it into the filled well whereupon it inevitably picks up more paint than can be cleanly applied to a surface. This means that the excess paint has to be; removed which is done by rolling the roller over the sloping ribbed surface. Popular paints have low viscosities which allow the excess paint to flow back down the slope and into the well but if the viscosity is too high, the paint will cling to the ribbed surface where it becomes a source of mess.
Another commercial practice for loading a roller comprises the use of a combination of a bucket filled with paint and a separate grid which is held manually over a full opened bucket or is removably latched onto the rim of a partially full opened bucket as shown for example in U.S. Pat. No. 5,283,928 issued in 1994. When a bucket and grid combination are used, the roller is loaded by dipping it into paint contained in the bucket whereupon as before it picks up excess paint which this time is removed by rolling the roller up and down the grid whilst the grid is positioned more or less vertically above the paint with its lower edge dipping into the paint. Irrespective of the viscosity of the paint, removal of excess paint in this way creates a messy grid and the mess is greater if the paint is highly viscous. A messy grid is more hazardous than a messy ribbed surface of a tray because the grid is not permanently attached to the bucket and so there is a risk of it being set down in the wrong place by a tiring absent-minded amateur.
The need to use a ribbed surface or a vertical grid can be avoided by supplying the paint in a tray as a solid composition having a shear-sensitive structure which enables a top shallow layer of the composition to break down and liquefy when a roller is rolled across it. The supply of such solid paints in a tray is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,304,693 published in 1981 or in European Patent Application EP 0 144 134A published in 1985. The fact that only a shallow top layer of the solid paint liquefies ensures that only a limited amount of paint can be picked up by the roller and so there is no need to remove excess paint using a ribbed surface or a vertical grid. However, the limitation on the amount of paint which can be picked up by the roller prevents the roller from loading quickly with enough paint for the application of a coating which is thick enough to give adequate one-coat cover or even cover using conventional (less viscous) coating compositions if the surface is badly marked.
European Patent Application EP 0 151 876A published in 1985 describes an alternative technique for avoiding the need to use a ribbed surface or vertical grid. The technique comprises supplying “popular forms of paint” in a tray and providing an open structured grid in which the apertures of the grid occupy over 70% of the area of the underneath area of the grid. The grid is made of for example polyvinyl chloride or “PVC” and it lies horizontally on the surface of the paint. The density of PVC is about 1.4 kg/l which is also about the upper limit of the density of popular paints so the surface tension and viscosity of a popular paint must be important amongst the forces which support the grid on the surface and prevent it from submerging into the paint. A roller can be loaded with paint from the tray by rolling it lightly across the grid as it lies horizontally on the surface of the paint. Once again only a limited amount of paint is picked up by the roller so avoiding the need for a messy removal of excess paint from the roller. But also once again, the limited amount of paint picked up is insufficient to provide conventional cover over a badly marked surface certainly not a coating which is thick enough to give adequate one-coat cover. The loading of paint onto the roller could in theory be increased by pressing the roller down harder onto the grid but such pressure causes the grid to submerge irretrievably into the paint allowing the roller to overload with no available means for removing excess paint. These problems have hitherto not been overcome even when successful commercially available one-coat paints have been tried as an alternative to the popular paint supplied in the tray as described above. An example of such a one-coat paint is “Crown” “Solo” which is currently supplied in a can for application by brush as described in European Patent EP 0 341 916B published in 1994. Another example is “Dulux” “Qantum” (sic) which is a one-coat paint described for application by roller but only when loaded from a traditional combination of bucket and vertical grid as described in the leaflet “Die Neue Streichweite” published by ICI Lacke Farbe GmbH in the late 1990's.